As another Edinburgh Fringe prepares to burst into life, I recently found myself looking through some old photographs and an even older poster.
The show was called Have You Been on Telly?
It was 1985.
The cast consisted of Paul Martin, who would later become Paul Merton, Mark Steel and Morris Minor and the Majors
Looking back now, it feels like a rather improbable gathering of future careers. At the time, however, we were simply a bunch of young comedians trying to persuade people to part with a few pounds and spend an evening laughing with us.
The title itself came from Paul. Whenever any of us told people we were comedians, the response was almost always the same.
“Have you been on the telly?”
We would then enthusiastically pool our collective achievements.
Paul had appeared briefly in The Young Ones Mark had done a line or two for Spike Milligan. Morris Minor and the Majors had reached the dizzying heights of performing one of our songs on Blue Peter.
Between us, we genuinely felt we were riding high.
The reality was somewhat less glamorous.
The publicity photographs were taken on an Instamatic camera by Camden Lock. We shared a flat in Edinburgh for the month. We spent our days flyering the streets, busking on the Royal Mile and trying to persuade complete strangers that our show was worth seeing that evening.
When busking on the Royal Mile in an effort to persuade people to come to our show, one of our secret weapons was a song that Tony Hawks and I had written one afternoon in my flat in Fulham called Girl’s Name.
The premise was beautifully simple. We’d identify a woman in the audience who was clearly accompanied by a boyfriend or husband and invite her onto our makeshift stage. We would then ask both their names and launch into an absurdly over-romantic love song using her name throughout.
The fact that we could somehow make virtually any name scan was impressive enough. The fact that we sang it like three hopelessly smitten puppies made people laugh.
But the real secret was the twist.
Just as the audience began to tire of our increasingly ridiculous declarations of affection, we would suddenly turn on the boyfriend.
As we say in comedy, it killed.
With hindsight, I realise that even then we were learning one of the great lessons of both comedy and communication. Audiences love surprise. They love being led one way and then suddenly finding themselves somewhere else entirely.
Every August, Edinburgh becomes a city powered by ambition, optimism and sleep deprivation. Thousands of performers arrive believing that this might be their year. Most won’t become famous. Most won’t get rich. But many will leave with something far more valuable: friendships, stories and a renewed belief in themselves.
That was certainly true of us.
Our days followed a wonderfully simple pattern. We’d wake up slightly worse for wear after another late-night party, spend the afternoon playing football with other comedians or busking on the Royal Mile, perform in the evening and then head off to another party. The next day, we’d do it all again.
Many years later, whenever I bump into the brilliant comedian and writer Nick Revell, we rarely talk about the gigs. We don’t reminisce about reviews, audiences or television appearances. Instead, we find ourselves talking about a particular cross, a particular finish or one of the football matches we played all those years ago.
Because that’s how memory works.
The friendships survive long after the reviews have faded.
On reflection, it strikes me that we were all entrepreneurs long before we knew the word. Nobody was funding us. Nobody was employing us. Nobody was waiting to discover us. We had to create the product, market the product, sell the tickets and then deliver the performance. If that isn’t a start-up, I don’t know what is.
But perhaps the biggest lesson was something even simpler.
Find your tribe.
The people who make you laugh when things go wrong. The people whose enthusiasm rubs off on you. The people who encourage your ideas rather than explaining why they won’t work. The people who make the journey more enjoyable simply by being on it.
I now realise that was one of the greatest gifts Edinburgh gave me.
Sifting through these photographs, I can’t help smiling.
We thought we’d already made it because between us we’d managed to accumulate appearances on Blue Peter, The Young Ones and The Spike Milligan Show.
The truth is we were only just beginning.
We didn’t know what lay ahead for Paul Martin. We didn’t know what lay ahead for Mark Steel. We certainly didn’t know what lay ahead for the rest of us.
We were simply young, hopeful and having the time of our lives.
And perhaps that’s one of the great lessons of Edinburgh.
Sometimes the most important thing isn’t where the journey takes you.
It’s who you share the journey with.
Warmest,
Paul x
P.S. Here at Humourology HQ, we’re taking our annual summer holiday. We’ll be putting down our microphones, notebooks and questionable jokes for the month of August before returning in September with Season Nine of The Humourology Podcast.
Until then, have a wonderful Humourology holiday. Laugh often, travel safely, take plenty of photographs and try not to take yourself too seriously.
We’ll see you in four weeks.
In case you missed it, here’s a link to Season 8’s final episode
